30 Ways to Trick a Trickster
by Miri1984
Summary: Tumblr 30 Day drabble challenge, for my cracksmash RP character Loki. Headcanon is a mismatch of MCU, Comicverse, a touch of EMH and whatever craziness happens to be going on at Cracksmash at the time.
1. Beginning

Frigga sits the two boys in front of her, smiling slightly at the difference between them. Thor squirms and fidgets, wanting to be outside, running, always running, her beautiful golden boy, while Loki sits, smiling slightly at his brother's antics, but mostly focused on her and the lessons he loves. His wide green eyes twinkle with some mischief, no doubt he has plans for the afternoon that will cause mayhem for his carers and delight for his brother and Sif, but for now, _for now _she has her boys to herself and can attempt to cram some wisdom into their heads.

Her visions have been more disturbing lately. There are things her children need to know, and she is not certain that they will ever learn them.

"Beginnings are very difficult, boys," she says.

Thor shoves Loki and Loki slaps his hand away. They giggle.

"Thor started that!" Loki says.

Frigga smiles. People are too ready to believe Loki the brighter of her two sons, but she knows, _she knows, _they are simply different.

"He did indeed, and if he does it again he will have no cake after supper tonight. But that was a simple beginning. Loki, where did the realms begin?"

"In fire and ice," he says promptly. "When the warm air of Muspelheim hit the cold ice of Niflheim, the jötunn Ymir and the icy cow Audhumla were created. Ymir's foot bred a son and a man and a woman emerged from his armpits, making Ymir the progenitor of the Jötnar. Whilst Ymir slept, the intense heat from Muspelheim made him sweat, and he…"

Thor shoved him again.

"Very good, Loki," Frigga smiles. "And that is true, in the way of these things. You are old enough now to know, however, that it is a story, a way of explaining things even your father does not understand."

"Father knows everything!" Thor says.

"No he doesn't!" Loki snaps back. "If he knew everything he would be able to do magic like mother can…"

Frigga holds up her hands. "Peace, children. Your father knows a great deal, but even our heads are not large enough to hold all the knowledge of all the worlds."

"Someday _I _will know everything."

"Someday_ I_ will break your nose."

Loki giggles, which stops Frigga from giving Thor the stern look he deserves. The two know each other in a way she will never know either of them, and it aches to see it. A pleasant ache, but one that also makes tears well at the corners of her eyes when she knows Odin cannot see.

Frigga spreads her hands, and between them an illusion of Yggdrasil forms, made of light, sparkling and beautiful. "Our world is a cycle, children. We are caught in it, like fish in a net. It repeats and repeats and repeats. The gift of prophecy that I hold is true because I can see echoes of what has come before."

The boys are silent now, blue eyes and green, wide and fixed on her. This is not lore that is taught to Asgardian children. Sif is not with them for this lesson, and Odin does not know that she is giving it. She looks at both children, but hopes with all her heart that Loki, who always listens, always learns more than she teaches, takes what she is saying to heart.

"Again and again our world is born, and dies. Ragnarok — the end of all things — is also a beginning." The illusion changes, red seeps through the roots of Yggdrasil and its boughs wither and droop. The boys watch, mouths open in fear.

"Mother it will die!"

She nods. "It will, Thor. But remember that in death comes new life." As the illusion of the tree withers and rots, a new sapling takes its place, brighter, younger, stronger. She sets the illusion free so it floats above the boys' heads, Yggdrasil again, more beautiful than before, stronger limbed. "Each cycle learns from its last. We are striving towards something, my loves, something that is too beautiful to submit itself to prophecy." She fixes them with a harsh stare as the tree fades to nothing. "Just because it has happened before, does not mean it has to happen again. Remember this. You are princes. You will be kings." Her gaze softens and she puts one finger under Thor's chin, another under Loki's, and lifts them both. "You can change things."

The boys leave the lesson uncharacteristically sober. No mischief is reported from them for the rest of the day, and Frigga is content.

She has delivered her warning.

Now she must simply hope.


	2. Accusation

_Sometimes you don't need words to feel accused._

Loki fights because he knows this is his fault.

Well.

_Let's try that one again. Specificity is the key to a good argument, after all. One must examine all the facts and then twist them to suit your needs._

Loki fights because he knows he is responsible for the chain of events that led them all to this place.

He would equivocate, were he actually accused of it. He has, at first count, four different explanations for why he is not responsible for what is currently happening, adjustable according to the circumstances of the accusation. He cannot be held accountable for Thor's lack of judgement. After all, he is a brother, not a parent. Many, many years as a younger brother does not make one responsible for the actions of one's older sibling, even should one… nudge said sibling towards decisions that are in accordance with one's plans.

Thor is not an orphan, after all. He has Odin, and Frigga, and all the other Asgardian nobles who look upon Thor as the golden child and shower him with gifts and praise while Loki watches in the background. Children are meant to be shaped by their parents, not their siblings.

Loki also cannot be held to task for the failings of his elders.

_One cannot be blamed for taking advantage of them, however._

Still he fights, because this particular scheme was supposed to end in Thor being humiliated and shouted at in front of the whole Asgardian court, not stuck on Jotunheim fighting with frost giants and being a complete _arse _about things.

Loki adjusts.

It's his way.

It's not the first time a scheme has spiraled out of control, and although as he throws the first dagger, casts the first illusion, he acknowledges that this, perhaps, is as far out of control of a scheme that he has ever been, he cannot also deny that he is exhilarated by it.

When the Jotun clutches at his wrist, however, the exhilaration turns to sick dread.

_The humans have a saying, "the best laid plans of mice and men…"_

_They never finish the saying. He suspects its something horrible and suitably mortal._

It doesn't even feel cold. The red eyes of the frost giant catch his and glint with knowledge that sparks rage in Loki's gut. He shoves the dagger into its chest with more force than is necessary, kicking the corpse away from him as though it burned. Whatever plans he may have been formulating, whatever excuses he had lined up in his head go with it, and he fights mindlessly until Fandral is wounded. Then it becomes a mad scramble to get away.

He tries to pick up the threads of his plot as they flee, but nothing comes; his mind is as bare as the frozen lands around them and he is afraid.

Sometimes you don't need words to feel accused.


	3. Snowflake

_In my headcanon Loki doesn't know about Fenrir and Jormangund until Odin discovers them. Angrboda has the gift of prophecy, as does Frigga, and seduces him in different forms in order to impregnate herself with her first two children._

_Hel, however, was conceived when she was in her true form._

Snow is uncommon in Asgard. The seasons turn very slowly there, time is not important when you have many hundreds of years to live, and magic provides food that the midgardians must trust to the unbalanced and capricious forces of nature.

It is in Jotunheim that Loki truly sees it for what it is.

Angrboda has long, dark lashes. When they walk together, in the wastes, snowflakes get caught in them and they stay, glittering and white, catching the light when she turns her head to instruct him. He cannot look away.

Her face is beautiful, for all it's wrongness. The blue swirls of her markings are like the tattoos he has seen on the faces of some of the midgardians, delicate and intricate, and he cannot stop himself from touching them. She smiles under his fingers as though his touch is familiar and it confuses him, that he feels like he should know her and doesn't, the taste of her lips, something in her eyes and her smile that says _I have been here before._

"Your mother taught you the ways of prophecy, Loki," she says to him, in the aftermath of their passion. "You know that this is a cycle that repeats. Perhaps it is not the first time we have lain together."

He smirks at her. "Perhaps it will not be the last."

She lays a palm along his face. Her touch is cold, but not as cold as he thought it would be. "It is the last, dearest," she says. "And best."

He frowns, but she will tell him no more, and that is the day their lessons end.


	4. Haze

Manipulating the mind of an enemy requires very little in the way of magic. It is this that the humans do not understand when they imprison him. They think him powerless. They think his magic is simply something physical, like Thor with Mjolnir and his _lightning _and they _do not understand._

He works from knowledge and experience. These humans, they live such short lives, they have no comprehension of how they themselves _work, _they are little, separate beings who meet in the dark with crude stone tools of communication and they never _connect _and they never _understand. _It is easy to find the controls and _twist _them, far easier than any spell he has mastered.

He uses his words to find the points that Barton has shown him to be weaknesses. It does not take many. They are lost creatures, lost in their world, but more importantly, lost inside themselves.

_The Soldier, the man out of time…._

_…A mindless beast who makes play he's still a man…_

_…A warm light for all mankind to share…_

_It burns you to have come so close…_

And then there is _her._

Barton gave him more information about Natasha Romanoff than all the others put together. He knows why. He can see the marks of affection on him, the man is true and stalwart and disgustingly like Thor in a lot of ways, yet his description of her is unsatisfying.

She is not one woman, she is many. She has no past that has not been smudged into a haze by the people who sought to control her. She has lived longer than the soldier, and she has learned from that time, and Loki does not know if he can get to her.

When he hears her tread on the floor near his cage, though, he cannot help but smile. For the first time since falling into the abyss, he feels like himself again. There is a challenge, a fight to win, and if he is uncertain of the outcome, he is not uncertain of his skill.

"There are not many who can sneak up on me," he says.

"But you knew I'd come."

He almost laughs. Because _he didn't. _


	5. Flame

He could, if he chose to, make them all burn.

Flame is easy to control, easy to conjure. Despite his heritage he has always had an affinity for fire, before many of his other magics came easily to him he was able to set things to burning with little more than a flicker of thought or a wave of his hand.

He has, however, been taught by many teachers, and nearly all of them have told him never to expose your strengths to an enemy. An enemy this vast, this unknown, well, he will do much much better to find out all he can about _them_ before he reveals all of himself.

There is pain, of course, but Loki knows pain. There are threats and promises and even a crushing defeat, but none of this is enough for him to let loose the fire that is within him. He was born to nothing, thrown back into nothing and he will claw his way out of nothing _and it will not defeat him._

When they send him to Midgard he has kept his knowledge of flame and ice and other magics from their grasp. The staff in his hands holds more than enough power to accomplish his purpose, and when it is done, when he is King or brought as close to nothing as these puny mortals will ever be able to manage, _then he will watch them all burn._


	6. Formal

He smoothes the scarf down and considers changing his hair, yet he wants them to recognise him. He does not need to make it difficult for them — not after what Barton has told him. From the balcony he looks out over the assembled crowd in their finery, gentle murmurs of polite conversation and strains of music floating up to his ears and making him shake his head.

So civilised.

So ignorant.

He makes his way down the steps, eyes fixed on the man he needs, the heavy weight of the sceptre in his hand. Barton needs a distraction. Loki thrives on distractions.

The solid thunk of the sceptre hitting the guard sets something aflame in his chest and he cannot_ help_ but enjoy this, throwing the scientist on the statue, listening to the screams of the humans because they were incapable of comprehending that chaos can be brought into their neat little world so easily. No one steps forward to help, not even as the man struggles, not even as he plunges Barton's device into his eyesocket… instead they run like the cattle they are, formality forgotten as they give in to their basest desires, fear, self preservation, _selfishness…_

Loki cannot help but smile.


End file.
